HP Pavilion g4-1215dx

HP Pavilion g4-1215dx comes with HP BrightView HD LED screen measuring 14 inches equipped with Altec Lansing speakers and SRS premium audio with an HDMI port. HP Pavilion g4-1215dx Notebook PC is equipped with switches TouchPad bertombol on / off switch that serves to support multi-touch gestures, and offers a choice of attractive colors such as Sonoma Red and Charcoal Grey.

HP Pavilion g4-1215dx Notebook PC was designed to express with perfect performance and full PC functionality so as to meet the needs of customers against connectivity and multimedia experience with a smooth and enjoyable. To better provide color and make the notebook more personal and expressive, HP provides the option of Snap-On with attractive designs.

The presence of the latest features of Microsoft in the drawing process that greatly facilitates the users, also with the use of Windows Live which can connect with Facebook social networking status. Image processing can easily be done, such as combining multiple photos at once, both the manipulation of the face to form a panorama. By combining the images to get a photo with maximum results. Edit a photo on the face to be easy, such as red eye feature on the eyes, to edit the acne on the face with just one click.

Design & Features

The Pavilion g4-1215dx won’t turn heads, but it doesn’t scream entry-level, either. It looks much like higher-end Pavilion models, in fact. It features a gray-and-black color scheme that won’t look out of place at the office or in your home. The lid and keyboard deck are made from a gray plastic, while the edges, keyboard, and screen bezel are a matte-black plastic. The case feels sturdy and doesn’t exhibit the worrisome flex that afflicts many budget models, including the Satellite L745D.

HP keeps branding to a minimum, outfitting the lid with a small logo in the corner.

Many budget models weigh in on the hefty side, but not the Pavilion g4-1215dx. It weighs 4.7 pounds, which is a good weight for a laptop with a 14-inch screen; it's a few ounces lighter than the 5.1-pound Toshiba Satellite L745D. The laptop measures 1.4x13.4x9.1 inches (HWD). Overall, it’s portable enough for frequent, if not daily, travel, yet it's big enough to act as an entertainment laptop in the home.

The lid is impressively thin, thanks in part to LED backlighting, while the left edge of the laptop features all of its ports and slots except for a lone USB 2.0 on the right edge.

Nothing about the display would indicate that it’s part of an entry-level laptop. The 14-inch screen features a 1,366x768 native resolution, which is standard for the size, and it uses LED backlighting, so the picture is bright.

The audio experience, and the Webcam above the screen, though, do betray this machine's budget roots. It seems HP tried to raise the bar with audio by including Altec Lansing-branded speakers, but the sound from them is merely average. It suffices for visits to YouTube and Hulu, but for feature-length movies with loud explosions or soft dialogue, you’ll want to use headphones or external speakers. In a similar vein, above the display is a decidedly entry-level Webcam with a 0.3-megapixel resolution. In our trials, it took grainy pictures and video.

Below the display is a keyboard that bucks the trend of Chiclet-style keys, in which each key is isolated from the other by a fixed border in the key bed. The keys here are best described as "faux Chiclet"; each key’s raised center makes it look Chiclet-style, even though their edges touch. Whatever you call this style of keyboard, we found it to be roomy and comfortable, with a soft feel when typing. And while accountants and other Excel jockeys may bemoan the lack of a number pad, we like the keyboard as it is: roomy and centered below the display.

The full-size keyboard doesn't feature Chiclet-style keys but is roomy and comfortable nonetheless.

Because there's no number pad, the touch pad is centered below the keyboard, which we also appreciate. The touch pad is merely a textured square on the wrist rest. We like this streamlined look, as well as the responsive feel the touch pad provides. It supports multi-touch gestures, such as pinch-to-zoom and two-finger scrolling. In the upper-left corner is a small dimple, which lets you disable and enable the touch pad when you double-tap it.

Features

The HP Pavilion g4-1215dx features a useful selection of ports, with one glaring omission. USB 3.0 connectivity is absent, so you’ll have to get by with a trio of USB 2.0 ports. You do get an HDMI port, in addition to the standard VGA video output. Headphone and mic jacks, a 10/100Mbps Ethernet port, and an SD/MultiMediaCard slot round out the connectivity options. All the ports and slots, save a lone USB 2.0 port, are located on the laptop’s left side. 802.11n Wi-Fi is the only wireless connectivity to be found; Bluetooth and Intel Wireless Display (WiDi) aren’t offered, though that's hardly a surprise given the price.

Nor was the hard drive capacity. Most of today’s laptops feature at least a 500GB hard drive, but we weren’t surprised to find a 320GB hard drive on the Pavilion g4-1215dx. Again, though, for the price it will suffice. You’ll find the usual software suspects preloaded onto it, such as the ad-supported Starter 2010 version of Microsoft Office, and the CyberLink apps PowerDVD (a media player) and YouCam (Webcam software).

You also get 60 days of Norton Internet Security 2012, along with offers from Snapfish and eBay that clutter the drive. An e-book reader called Blio is also present, as is a selection of HP utilities such as HP MovieStore (a rebranded version of RoxioNow for renting or buying movies and TV shows) and HP MusicStore (a rebranded Rhapsody music subscription). These last three items could prove useful if you're into consuming a good amount of media, but most folks will want to clean up some or all of these utilities before installing their own software and services.